Mrs. Mulholland, moved to something like pity by their stricken appearance, put out her hand saying, "How do you do?" and two of them laid their limp fingers in hers--the third, whom she now noticed was a child although she wore a long black skirt, neither stirred nor removed her stony gaze from her face. There was an embarra.s.sing pause. Then Mrs.

Mulholland asked with a bright society smile--

"How do you like England?"

No answer.

"George, dear, ask them in French," said his mother.

George stepped forward blushing through his tan. "Um ... er ..." he cleared his throat. "_S'il vous plait Londres?_" he inquired timidly.

He addressed the tallest, but she gazed at him vacantly, not understanding. The little girl stood next to her--the large tragic eyes in her small pale face still fixed on the unknown countenance of Mrs.

Mulholland. She conveyed the impression that she had not heard any one speak.

George, blushing deeper, turned towards the third ghost standing before him, coughed again and repeated his question, "_S'il vous plait Londres?_"

Then a strange thing happened. The third ghost smiled. It was a real smile, a gleaming smile, a smile with dimples. The ghost was suddenly transformed into a girl. "_Merci. L'Angleterre nous plait beaucoup._"

That was in order not to hurt the "half Frenchman's" feelings. Then she added in English, "London is very nice."

"Oh," snapped the astonished Mrs. Whitaker, "you speak English?" and her tone conveyed the impression that something belonging exclusively to her had been taken and used without her permission.

"A little," was the murmured reply. The smile had quickly died away; the dimples had vanished. Under Mrs. Whitaker's scrutiny the girl faded into a ghost again. The two ladies nodded and moved away. George and Eva, after a moment's hesitation and embarra.s.sment, followed them.

"What strange, underhand behaviour!" commented Mrs. Whitaker; "never to have told me she understood English until today."

"I suppose they were trying to find out all your family concerns," said Mrs. Mulholland.

A word that sounded like "Bosh" proceeded from George, who had turned his back and was walking into the house.

"I think they were just dazed," explained Eva. "They look almost as if they were walking in their sleep. I never even noticed until today that they were all so young. Why, the little one is a mere kiddy;" she twisted round on her heel. "I think I shall go back and talk to them,"

she added.

"No," said her mother. "You will stay here."

That evening when Mr. Whitaker came back from the City his daughter had much to tell him, and even the somewhat supercilious George took an interest and joined in the conversation.

"The ghosts have spoken, papa!" cried Eva, dancing round him in the hall. Then as soon as he was in the drawing-room she made him sit down in his armchair and kissed him on the top of his benevolent bald head.

"And--do you know?--they are really not ghosts at all; are they, mother?"

Mrs. Whitaker did not look up from her knitting. But her husband spoke.

"They are the wife, the sister, and the daughter of a doctor," he said.

"At the Belgian Consulate I was told they were quite decent people. My dear Theresa," he added, looking at his wife, "I think we ought to have asked them to take their meals with us."

"I did so," said Mrs. Whitaker, with some asperity. "I did so, although they do look like scarecrows. But they say they prefer having their meals by themselves."

"Then you must respect their wishes," said Mr. Whitaker, opening a commercial review.

"Just fancy, Pops," said Eva, perching herself on the arm of her father's chair, "the youngest one--the poor little creature with the uncanny eyes--is deaf and dumb."

"How sad!" said her father, caressing his daughter's soft hair.

"Did her mother tell you so?" asked Mrs. Whitaker, looking up from the grey scarf she was knitting.

"No, not her mother," explained Eva; "the other one told me. The one with the dimples, who speaks English. She is sweet!" cried the impulsive Eva, and her father patted her hair again and smiled.

"Her name is Sherry," remarked George.

"Oh, George, you silly," exclaimed Eva. "You mean Cherie."

"How do you know her name?" snapped Mrs. Whitaker, laying down her knitting in her lap and fixing stern inquisitorial eyes upon her son.

"She told me," said George, with a nonchalant air.

"She told you!" said his mother. "I never knew you had any conversation with those women."

"It wasn't conversation," said George. "I met her in the garden and I stopped her and said, 'What is your name?' and she answered, 'Sherry.'

That's all."

"Queer name," said his father.

"My dear Anselm, that is really not the point--" began Mrs. Whitaker, but the dressing-gong sounded and they all promptly dispersed to their rooms, so Anselm never knew what the point really was.

After dinner Eva, as usual, went to the piano, opened it and lit the candles, while her father sat in the dining-room with the folding-doors thrown wide open, as he declared he could not enjoy his port or his pipe without Eva's music.

"What shall it be tonight, Paterkins?" Eva called out in her birdlike voice. "Rachmaninoff?"

"No. The thing you played yesterday," said her father, settling himself comfortably in his armchair, while the neat maid quietly cleared the table.

"Why, that _was_ Rachmaninoff, my angel-dad," laughed Eva, and twisted the music-stool to suit her height.

George came close to her and bending down said something in an undertone.

"Good idea," said Eva. "Ask the mater."

"You ask her," said George, sauntering into the adjoining room, where he sat down beside his father and lit a cigarette.

Eva went to her mother, and coaxed her into consenting to what she asked. Then she ran out of the room and reappeared soon after, bringing with her the three figures in black. As they hesitated on the threshold, she slipped her arm through the arm of the reluctant "Sherry" and drew her forward. "Do come!--_Venny!_" she said, and the three entered the room.

They were quite like ghosts again, with pale faces and staring eyes and the rigid gait of sleep-walkers.

They sat down silently in a row near the wall, and Eva went to the piano and played. She played the Rachmaninoff "Prelude," and when she had finished they neither moved nor spoke. She wandered off into the gentle sadness of G.o.dard's "Barcarole," and the three ghosts sat motionless.

Schumann's "Carnaval" did not cheer them, nor did the "Moonlight Sonata"

move them. When Eva at last closed the piano they rose, and the two eldest, having silently bowed their thanks, they left the room, conducting between them the little one, whose pallor seemed more spectral and whose silence seemed even deeper than theirs.

"Poor souls! poor souls!" growled Mr. Whitaker, clearing his throat and knitting his brows. "Theresa, my dear," to his wife, "see that they lack for nothing. And I hope the children are always very kind and considerate in their behaviour to them. George," he added, turning what he believed to be a beetling brow upon his handsome son, "I noticed that you stared at them. Do not do so again. Grief is sensitive and prefers to remain unnoticed."

George mumbled that he hadn't stared and marched out of the room. Eva put her arms round her father's neck and pressed on his cheek the loud, childish kisses that he loved.

"May I go and talk to them a little?" she asked, in a coaxing whisper.